


After

by Windstorms



Series: Darkness Falls verse [2]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Exes, Getting Back Together, Hurt Jensen Ackles, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Protective Jared Padalecki, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 05:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18114554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windstorms/pseuds/Windstorms
Summary: The nights are quiet, after the world ends.





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> Short and vague, and rather pointless, but my mind was distracted with zombie apocalypse thoughts while driving around yesterday, and then this just sort of happened. 
> 
> There's no actual zombies in this... yet, but I might continue with this to fill the void The Walking Dead has left in me.
> 
> This is a re-posting of an old work.

By the time Jensen’s back from checking the perimeter, the fire is low. He bends down and picks up a few pieces of wood they’d set aside to keep the fire going throughout the night, tosses them on. The wood catches quickly and the fire springs back to life. He squats down and warms his hands for a moment before glancing over at Jared. He hasn’t moved from where he was sitting before Jensen went on patrol.

“It wasn’t your fault. What happened back there. You couldn’t have saved her,” he says.

Jared stares at the fire. He looks drained, and the glow of the firelight dancing shadows across his face does little to improve Jensen’s assessment. “Can’t save anybody,” is all he says.

The statement is true enough. It doesn’t really bear thinking about. Not tonight.

He walks over to where Jared is sprawled out and sits down beside him with a grunt. They’re sitting with their backs against a fallen tree trunk, watching the fire and the woods beyond. Their bed tonight will be made up of dirt and rocks. But it’s better than some places they’ve slept.

“I miss taking showers,” Jensen starts off.

It’s their nightly routine. Every night, they each list one thing they miss from before. Nothing too sentimental, that’s the only rule. Jared looks over at him then, and Jensen catches the way the corners of his mouth turn up, like he wants to smile.

That’s a good start. That’s all Jensen wants to see right now.

“You need one. You reek,” Jared shoots back, and then they’re both laughing. Back to normal. Or what passes for normal, these days.

“Twenty minutes of hot water and some soap? I’d freaking kill for it right about now,” Jensen whines.

“I miss coffee,” Jared says with a wistful sigh.

“God _yes_. Fuck the shower. You win this round.” He nods decisively. He'd take having caffeine over being clean any day, even before.

Before everything ended.


	2. Together, or Not At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're on a routine supply run when everything goes sideways. Jensen gets hurt, but Jared is there to help.

For a while there, Jensen thinks they aren't going to make it.  
  
They’re on a supply run. Things have been going smoothly; they haven’t seen any zombies since they first entered the shopping district. Then, everything goes sideways quickly.  
  
They've been rifling through what had once been a pharmacy, looking for anything useful. Aspirin, antibiotics, painkillers, bandages – all invaluable nowadays. They find a few things to restock their stash and they are heading for the exit when, in a rush and not really paying attention, Jensen trips over a display of allergy medication.

His body goes one way and his foot goes the other. He goes down, hard, landing on his side. Bottles upon bottles of pills crash down all around him. It seems like allergy pills aren’t high on the list of supplies that survivors need, because they’ve certainly left a shit-ton of them behind.  
  
His ankle is already giving a warning twinge when he tries to move it, but he’s more concerned with getting the hell out of there. All the commotion he just made is like ringing the dinner bell for every zombie in a four-block radius.  
  
“Can't take you anywhere,” Jared remarks, sounding unconcerned. That lasts until he looks away from the doorway back to where Jensen lays sprawled out on the floor.  
  
Jensen can't think of a comeback right away. His throbbing ankle is making getting his feet back under him take more effort than he'd care to admit.  
  
Of course, it doesn't go unnoticed by Jared.  
  
“Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters under his breath, dropping his duffel as he rushes to Jensen's side to crouch down beside him. “How bad?”  
  
Jensen grits his teeth and looks Jared in the eye. “Probably not broken. Twisted it all to hell though.”  
  
Jared nods, throat bobbing. He looks over his shoulder to make sure they don't have any company coming, and then he starts yanking up the hem of Jensen's jeans and pulling at his boot laces.  
  
“Not here,” Jensen grates out. “It's not safe.” Jared opens his mouth to protest, but Jensen says, “I can make it out of here. We've gotta keep moving.”  
  
Jared scowls but doesn't say anything. He clearly thinks Jensen is wrong. They can bicker about it some other time. Later, when they're not trapped in a small building with only one way out. Jared shoulders his rifle and offers Jensen his free hand.  
  
“Come on then,” he says simply, grasping his hand and hauling him up. More bottles of pills go rolling across the floor as Jensen is pulled to his feet. He can't help kicking one with his good foot out of frustration at the whole situation.  
  
Jared doesn't let go of Jensen's hand once he's upright. Instead he uses it to draw Jensen's arm across his shoulder, taking the brunt of Jensen's weight off his bad ankle.  
  
“Not an invalid,” Jensen grumbles.  
  
“I know,” Jared says, like he's talking to a child having a temper tantrum. “Think you can carry my pack?”  
  
It's the lightest piece out of all their gear, and Jensen shoots him a withering look.  
  
“ _Not_ an invalid,” he repeats. Jared just wordlessly hands him the backpack and scoops up Jensen's and his own discarded duffels. Together, they slowly stumble down the cluttered aisle and towards the store's exit.  
  
They stop to assess their surroundings once they're standing outside on the sidewalk, and Jensen pauses to take a deep breath of fresh air. It's cooler out here than it was in the stuffy building.  
  
They must have been in there longer than he thought, because the sun is much lower on the horizon than it was when they'd first gone inside. It'll be getting dark soon, so they really need to get back to their campsite and take shelter for the night. In the morning, they can decide their next course of action. Jared's been intent on getting out of the city and heading south for a while now. They don't ever talk about why, but Jensen thinks part of him is still holding out hope his family is somehow alive.  
  
Jensen stopped thinking about his family a while ago. He had to. He focuses on Jared and the feeling of _not alone_ and that's enough for him. There's no going back to how things were before.  
  
They start a slow, three-legged kind of shuffle down the street. He feels at once more exposed and safer. They’re out in the open where they can be attacked from literally any direction, but he feels better just having Jared so close. It certainly makes walking (limping) along easier.  
  
“Tell me if it hurts too much and we'll take a break,” Jared says after a little while. They haven't made that much progress getting down the road, but he knows Jensen almost better than he knows himself. At a time like this, it’s almost as comforting as it is infuriating.  
  
“I'm okay,” he says, but he leans closer to Jared, letting him know without words that he's grateful for his assistance. “I think it's just a sprain. I was lucky.”  
  
Jared shrugs against him. “If we were lucky, it wouldn't have happened in the first place.”  
  
Jensen glances over at him, surprised at the sudden bitterness in his voice. Behind them, somewhere not too far-off down the street, there's the sound of an inhuman raspy growl. A few seconds later, another one moans. It almost sounds like they're calling to each other. He feels Jared go tense beside him.  
  
Jensen stops any pretense of trying to hobble his way down the street and stands perfectly still. “How many?” Jensen asks, as quietly as he can.  
  
Jared grips Jensen's arm tighter to support him and then slowly turns around to check. “A lot,” is all he says. His voice doesn't give anything away but his body language is screaming that they're in trouble. He turns back around and they start shuffling forward again, moving faster than before.  
  
But Jensen knows it won't be fast enough. He can hear more moaning and growling joining the others in the distance and he risks a glance over his shoulder as they're hopping along, and _holy shit_. There's easily two dozen zombies about two blocks away.  
  
And they're shambling their way straight towards them.  
  
“Go,” Jensen says, forcefully pushing Jared away. He stumbles and almost falls at the sudden loss of Jared's support, but he manages to steady himself.  
  
For a split-second Jared's eyes flash with hurt, but his expression quickly turns to fury. “I'm _not_ leaving you,” he spits. “Don't you even try this macho save yourself bullshit with me.”  
  
“There's too many of them. I'm only gonna slow you down and get us both killed. Just _go_ ,” Jensen tries again. He takes a few shaky steps away from Jared, and he's limping so badly it'd be almost comical if the zombies weren't catching up to them. The sound of their growls are steadily getting closer, and Jensen gets it, even if Jared doesn't.  
  
They're fucked.  
  
He takes a deep breath and awkwardly stumbles sideways until he’s on the other side of the street, until he’s safely _away_ from Jared. He’s keenly aware of Jared’s eyes on him, but Jensen knows this is the best shot they have at one of them getting out of this alive. He fumbles for the pistol that's tucked into the front pocket of Jared's backpack. His ankle is screaming at him with every step he takes, but he feels a little better once he wraps his hand around the gun.  
  
He looks around for Jared then, and he panics when he doesn't see him anywhere near where he left him. A few moments later he hears the loud crack of a rifle, and then he knows exactly what Jared's doing. Jensen stumbles to a stop and turns around to see that Jared has lagged behind to start shooting the undead motherfuckers to give Jensen a head start.  
  
“Shit,” Jensen mutters. Then he yells, “Jared, stop!” He raises his pistol and aims for the zombie that’s closest to Jared from Jensen's angle. He fires off a shot and watches the zombie crumple to the ground a second later. “Jared!”  
  
“Get going!” Jared bellows over his shoulder. He's shooting at the approaching zombies as fast as he can, and Jensen takes out another two when Jared has to stop to reload.  
  
They keep up their makeshift system of covering each other for what feels like ages but what probably only lasts for a few minutes. But neither of them are moving, and they're not getting anywhere this way. The sound of their gunfire is only causing more zombies to pour out into the streets. Sooner or later they're going to run out of ammo, and that'll be it.  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen says, with feeling, and starts to limp towards Jared. He doesn't even make it ten feet before a zombie comes out of seemingly nowhere and knocks him to the ground. All the breath leaves his lungs in a whoosh and he lies there for a few seconds, momentarily stunned.  
  
Jensen realizes the rotting fucker had been heading towards him from behind the remains of a burned out car on the side of the street. Jensen had been so laser-focused on getting to Jared that he hadn't even seen it coming. He manages to get his wits about him enough to wrestle with the zombie and dodges to the side just as it tries to lean in to bite at his shoulder.  
  
Distantly, he’s aware that the sound of gunfire has stopped. He frantically tries to raise his head to look for Jared, but he can’t get away from the zombie. He’s got to end this and get to Jared. If Jared dies here because of his colossal fuck-up, he’ll never forgive himself.  
  
He brings up his pistol and aims it at the zombie's forehead and pulls the trigger. There's a metallic c _lick_ but nothing else happens. He's out of bullets, too.  
  
 _Fuck, this is how we’re both going to die_ , he thinks hysterically. In the back of his mind, he wishes he had the chance to apologize to Jared.  
  
He drops the gun and punches the thing in the head as hard as he can. The force of the punch splits his knuckles open, but he barely even feels it. The zombie snarls and rears back, but then it leans in again, unfazed. Jensen grabs it by the shoulders and tries to throw it off of him, but it's no use. He's pinned, and he can't reach the knife that he keeps in his back pocket.  
  
The zombie leans in again, all gnashing teeth and rotting breath, and that’s when a blade slices right through the side of its brain. The zombie abruptly falls on Jensen, lifeless.  
  
Jensen looks up, gasping for breath. Jared is standing over him, breathing hard and still looking angrier than he's ever seen him. He stoops down and helps Jensen roll the body off of him. Then he reaches over and pulls the knife out of the zombie's head. He holds his hand out and Jensen grabs it.  
  
Jared yanks him to his feet and then he's hauling him between the cars and down a side street. He's still supporting most of Jensen's weight, but he's not being as gentle as he was before, and Jensen understands. He fucked up, and they have to get the hell out of here.  
  
They lost some of their gear in all the confusion back there, but that's the least of their problems. Jensen's ankle still throbs like a bitch with every step he takes, but he knows better than to say anything until they're somewhere safe.  
  
They continue on in that manner for a few blocks until there's no sign or sound of any more zombies. Eventually, just when Jensen thinks he’s going to have to give up and tell Jared he can’t go any farther, Jared stops. He peers cautiously up and down the street. Apparently satisfied that they’ve gotten away from the threat, Jared abruptly deposits Jensen on the sidewalk. Then he kneels down and starts to examine Jensen’s leg without really looking at him.  
  
“I'm sorry,” Jensen begins, knowing it's not anything like enough.  
  
“Don't you ever do something like that again,” Jared says, voice soft but furious. He still isn’t looking at his face but he can't stop touching him either. “Are you hurt? Did it... did it bite you?”  
  
“No, it didn’t bite me,” he says quietly. He raises his bloodied hand up for inspection because there’s no use hiding the damage to his knuckles.  
  
Jared’s face tightens, and for the first time he looks more worried than angry. “Where else?” He starts to examine Jensen more closely, like he thinks Jensen is hiding more injuries under his clothes.  
  
“Stop,” Jensen says.  
  
But Jared isn't listening. He starts methodically patting down every square inch of Jensen that he can reach. Brow furrowed, mouth set in a grim line, he looks like he wants to go back and knife the zombie in the head a few more times, just to be sure the zombie is good and dead. Again.  
  
“Stop,” Jensen repeats, reaching out for one of Jared's hands. He’s not surprised to find it’s shaking. “I'm okay.”  
  
“Jen...” Jared sucks in a breath and leans down, resting his forehead against Jensen's. “I don't know what I'd do if something happened-”  
  
“It didn't,” Jensen interrupts, desperate to distract him from that line of thought. He pulls back a little and stares at Jared. When Jared doesn't look up, he puts two fingers under his chin and tilts it up to force him to make eye contact. “It didn't.”  
  
“I tried. I tried and I couldn't get to you. There were too many and I couldn't get away from them, and you were so far away. I thought that one that had you on the ground – I thought,” he breaks off, looking down. “I can't lose you.”  
  
“You didn't. I'm right here. Just some torn up knuckles and a bum ankle. No bites, see?” He holds up his arms and lifts up his shirt. Jared doesn’t even crack a smile.  
  
“Jensen, you're not hearing me. I can't do this without you.” There's an edge of desperation to his voice that Jensen doesn't like. Not at all. He knows how Jared feels, because he'd feel exactly the same way. If he didn't have Jared, he would've put a bullet in his head back when this whole shitstorm first started.  
  
There was a time when people used to say that they were in their own little world. That it was just the two of them and they didn’t need anybody else. They had their own ways of communicating without words, their own inside jokes, and they simply got each other better than anyone else did. It worked for them. Then the show had ended and so had they. Now, they really are in their own little world. And they still don’t need anybody else. Jensen has to cling to that belief, and he has to make Jared believe it too.  
  
“We're both okay, Jay. We're okay.” He pulls Jared closer and wraps his arms around his back, whispering words of encouragement into his ear until Jared's shoulders relax and he leans into his touch, and it's just them. Just them, like always, and everything's gonna be okay.  
  
*  
  
Jensen's sitting propped up against a tree, with Jared sitting by his side. He’s wrapping Jensen’s knuckles, his strong fingers deft and precise from way too much practice at this.  
  
“I just want to thank you for not shooting me in the leg and leaving me back there.”  
  
Jared glares at him like he's thinking that Jensen is being too childish to even bother replying to.  
  
“You know, like Shane?” Jensen continues, tilting his head sideways to catch Jared's eye.  
  
“Yeah, I got the reference. That's not ever gonna be funny, Jen.” Finished with dressing his hand, he moves to start assessing Jensen’s ankle. He pulls off his boot and sock carefully and watches Jensen's face for any sign of discomfort. It turns out they'd found those painkillers at the pharmacy in the nick of time.  
  
“Come on. It's a little bit funny.”  
  
“No, it's really, really not.” Jared presses at his ankle and gently turns it this way and that. “Tell me where it hurts.”  
  
“Doesn't hurt anywhere right now,” Jensen says, unable to keep the dopey grin off his face.  
  
Jared heaves a sigh and puts his foot down. “I think this is gonna have to wait til morning,” he announces. “I should’ve looked at this before you took the fun pills.”  
  
And _duh_ , Jensen could've told him that much. And okay, he might be a little high off the painkillers, but the whole thing is still amusing to him.  
  
Jared stands and dusts his hands off on his jeans. He goes to sit down closer to the fire with his back to Jensen. Immediately, Jensen doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want things to be like this between them. He scoots away from the tree and does a ridiculous sort of crab-walk until he's sitting beside Jared.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, quiet and sincere.  
  
Jared looks at him, hazel eyes serious in the firelight, and nods. Then he leans in and kisses him on the corner of the mouth. “Don't ever scare me like that again.”  
  
Even through the haze of painkillers, he knows he can't promise something like that. Neither of them can. Instead of answering, Jensen shifts closer to Jared's side until he gets the hint and wraps his arm around Jensen’s shoulders.  
  
He watches the fire burn for a while. Then a small smile spreads across his face as he thinks of their nightly ritual.  
  
“I miss walking like normal,” Jensen finally says.  
  
Jared barks out a laugh. “I miss normal you that isn't loopy on pain meds,” he retorts. “And for the record, you’ve never walked normally with those bowlegs of yours.”  
  
He looks over at him, fully prepared to pretend to be offended and start a mock-fight, but Jared kisses him then. His mouth moves gently over his lips at first. Jensen responds in kind. Tasting him, breathing Jared's breaths, feeling his body move against his, real and whole and alive. They both need this closeness, the reassurance that the other one is still there.  
  
Jared deepens the kiss, tongue exploring his mouth, as one hand trails down the curve of Jensen's back until his fingertips are dipping just beneath the waistband of his jeans. In response Jensen arches against him, only breaking away when he moves his foot and the pain in his ankle shoots up his leg and reminds him this probably isn't the best idea tonight.  
  
Jared notices when he winces and starts to disentangle himself. When Jensen protests, Jared shushes him, running his hands through his hair and pressing a line of kisses up his neck and across his jaw. “It's okay,” he murmurs.  
  
“We're okay,” Jensen says when they pull apart. He feels Jared nod before he brushes his lips against his temple.  
  
They don’t talk about the fact that it’s the first time they’ve kissed in over two years. It feels like a natural progression of where things have been heading for months. It’s almost like they’re picking up exactly where they left off, and Jensen realizes that he never got over Jared, not really. They sit by the fire like that for a long time, wrapped up together for warmth and comfort.  
  
For tonight, they are together and okay. And that's enough. It's everything.


	3. Beside the Dying Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared has a lot to think about after impulsively kissing Jensen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up where the previous chapter left off.
> 
> For reference purposes: the timeline of this story has Supernatural ending after season 5.

It's cold, even with a fire going. Jared isn’t sure what day of the week it is, let alone what month. But he thinks it’ll be winter in a few more weeks, give or take. Soon, it will be too cold for them to keep sleeping outside at night. They’ve got to find something more permanent. Somewhere safe.

Ever since this whole thing started, Jared’s been trying to keep people safe. Jared feels like he’s failed at that in every way possible. First he’d let Chad down. And today he almost lost Jensen.

Jared stands and paces around the edge of the camp. He shoves his hands in his pockets and peers out into the darkness. He listens for a few moments, and hears nothing but the crackling of the campfire and Jensen’s steady breathing.

Jensen had fallen asleep not long after Jared wrapped up his ankle. Jared’s not sure if it’s the painkillers or all the stress of the day that had knocked him out. Jensen had let Jared tend to his ankle without any complaints, for once, and then turned over on his side and drifted off almost immediately.

Jared had taken one of his old shirts and torn it into strips and wrapped it around Jensen’s ankle to give him some support. It was still swelling so Jared had kept the makeshift dressing a little loose in the hopes that Jensen would be comfortable enough to sleep through the night. Jared would have to check it again in the morning and rewrap it properly.

Examining it by firelight it was hard to say for sure, but the bruising and swelling led him to believe it was a sprain. Hopefully there’s no serious damage. If it’s broken and Jensen is incapacitated for months, Jared really doesn’t know what they’ll do.

Jared scrubs his hands over his face and tries to get the image of Jensen lying on the ground, pinned and helpless underneath the zombie, out of his mind. He tries not to think of how close he came to losing him. It’s too much like what happened to Chad.

That’s still one of the things he doesn’t let himself think about. But sometimes, late at night when Jensen’s asleep and he’s left alone with his thoughts, he can’t escape it.

His eyes suddenly sting at the thought of Chad, and he shakes his head. He can’t keep reliving that night. Even Chad would tell him to let it go, to keep moving forward.

He takes a deep breath and looks around the campsite. Jensen is lying about ten feet away, out cold. They usually take turns keeping watch, but he won’t be waking Jensen up tonight. He needs to rest, and Jared needs to think about everything that’s happened.

He should be angry at Jensen. No, he should be fucking _furious_ at him for being so reckless. What in the hell did he think he was doing, anyway? If something happened to Jensen, Jared wouldn’t be far behind. Half the time, he still can’t wrap his mind around the fact that this isn’t some script from their TV show. The only thing he's certain of is that he doesn’t want to go on in this world without Jensen in it.

He’s not sure why he kissed Jensen. He’d been so frantic to get to him and make sure he was okay, and then so relieved after it was all over that he’d gotten caught up in the moment. It had just seemed like the right thing to do.

And now?

All he knows is he’s never felt anything close to what he feels for Jensen with anyone else, even without the world falling to pieces around them.

He doesn't take things for granted anymore. He’d had a television show, and a burgeoning movie career. He'd had a comfortable house and a couple of cars. He’d had two dogs that he adored. When he’d fled his house, he’d opened the back door and left the backyard’s gate open. Hoping it would give them a fighting chance. He swallows the sudden lump in his throat.

He keeps a mental list of all the things he's lost. Chad. His dogs. His entire family, probably. Childhood friends and people he’d worked with over the years. His home.

He's already lost Jensen once before. The details seem silly now. Maybe it was out of carelessness, maybe he'd just been blind to the things that really mattered in life.

When the show had ended, they'd tried the long-distance thing. Jensen had gone to LA and started auditioning and Jared had gone to Austin. He wasn't so sure he wanted to be a part of the Hollywood scene anymore. He was tired of hiding who he was, and he was tired of always having to be “on”.

He'd never been tired of Jensen though. He wasn't sure the other man believed that, by the end.

In the beginning, one of them would fly out to wherever the other one was every weekend. Then it slowly dwindled to every other week, and then it became a few times a month. They kept in constant touch by texting or Skype, but it wasn’t the same after they’d spent five years being around each other every moment.

They started talking less, and fighting more, and eventually they just completely drifted apart. He’d let it all slip through his fingers. Back then, it seemed like there would always be time to fix it. Time to work things out with Jensen. Time to focus on his career again when he was ready, time to figure out who he was and what he wanted out of life.

It all seems trivial now. When the house, the cars, the fame and the money don't matter in this new world.

“Sam?” Jensen’s groggy, sleep-roughened voice startles him out of his thoughts. It takes him a moment longer before Jared catches on that Jensen’s called him by that name, and that has him moving swiftly to Jensen’s side.

He’s having a dream about the show again, then.

It could be a side effect from the painkillers, but they’ve both always been so used to being together, on-screen and off, that their characters sometimes carried over into their dreams. The irony isn’t lost on him that certain elements of the show that they used to laugh at turned out to be more realistic than either of them ever thought possible.

Too bad he doesn’t have a script that will tell him what to do next to guide them through this mess. He crouches down beside Jensen and rests his hand on the small of his back. Part of him marvels that he’s allowed this kind of familiar contact again. “Jensen,” he says softly.

“‘s it my watch?”

“Not yet,” he says. He smirks a little, because it’s not even a lie.

“Ngh. Okay,” Jensen murmurs without opening his eyes. He scoots closer to the fire and tugs the blanket up over his shoulder, and the mere fact he accepted Jared’s answer without question or arguing reveals more than words could just how worn out he really is.

“How's your pain, Jen? On a scale of one to ten.”

Jensen does open his eyes then, and he looks up at Jared with something like fond amusement. “I'd give it about a three, Nurse Jared.” He winks at him, like the smartass he usually is, and then closes his eyes again.

Jared can't let him go back to sleep just yet though. Jensen knows how limited their resources are, and he would casually say he was fine while he was bleeding out. “Are you sure?”

“I'm okay, Jared, really. Just, could you maybe lay down with me til I fall asleep? ‘M cold.” He turns over on his side again like he's waiting for Jared to lie down and _spoon_ with him, of all things.

Jared hesitates for a moment. This rekindled thing between them is still new and it feels precarious. They have _a lot_ to talk about.

“Jay?” Jensen says, suddenly sounding much more awake, and unsure of what's going on.

The uncertainty in his voice is all it takes. He's never been able to deny Jensen anything. Jared quickly moves to lie down on his side behind Jensen, and Jensen scoots forward a little, moving to share the rolled up jacket he is using as a makeshift pillow. Then Jensen reaches his hand out, feeling blindly for him in the darkness, and Jared takes it. Jensen pulls him in closer and Jared leans against Jensen until they're pressed together, sharing each other's warmth. Jared lets go of Jensen’s hand and wraps his arm around his waist, resting his other hand on Jensen’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” Jensen says, already sounding drowsy again.

“Of course.”

He feels some of the tension drain from Jensen as he nestles closer. It's been a long time since they've laid so close together like this, but Jared knows he’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn't been hoping they'd eventually find their way back to each other.

They lie there together in companionable silence for several long moments, Jared just enjoying the feeling of having Jensen in his arms again.

He waits for Jensen’s breathing to even out in sleep. It doesn’t take very long. He can’t remember the last time either one of them got a full night’s sleep, so he’s not that surprised. He feels exhausted right down to the bone himself, but his mind is too wired, too full of whirling emotions. Not sleeping won’t be a problem for him tonight.

After a little while, Jared slowly pulls back, careful not to move too quickly and risk waking Jensen. Jared climbs to his feet and goes to put another log on the fire, never taking his eyes off of Jensen. The firelight illuminates his features in orange and red shadows, and Jared tries not to think of blood.

“I missed you so much,” Jared says, knowing it’s safe to finally say one of the more truthful things he’s been missing since Jensen is sound asleep once again. “I've missed us,” he admits.

If he finally lowers his head and lets the tears fall - an overwhelmed combination built-up from all the day’s fear, guilt, and relief - it's nobody's business but his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter concludes part 1. There will be more parts to this 'verse though.
> 
> Feedback/concrit is welcome.


End file.
